Tag Archives: security

Italy dismisses Georgian rebel region

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Italian Foreign Ministry dismissed a claim that the alleged new embassy of South Ossetia in Rome has any official status. Earlier, the Kremlin-backed Sputnik news agency reported the imminent opening of a representative office for South Ossetia in Rome. The Italian ministry said its official position “is to refuse recognition of the independence and sovereignty of South Ossetia.” Only Russia and a handful of countries looking to curry favour with the Kremlin have followed this lead and recognised South Ossetia as an independent country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Azerbaijan- Armenia fighting over N-K threatens Europe’s plans

APRIL 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For Europe, the fierce fighting this week between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian-backed forces was a reminder that their plan to bring the South Caucasus firmly into its economic sphere is a risky one.

Eight years ago Russia and Georgia fought over the rebel region of South Ossetia. Now Azerbaijan and Armenia are close to all-out war over another sliver of land.

Wedged between these two scruffy, mountainous regions is the trade corridor that Europe relies on to transport goods to and from the Caspian Sea and Asia.

Theodoras Tsakiris, assistant professor for energy, geopolitics, and economics at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus told RFE/RL that two major pipelines pumping oil gas to Europe which lie just north of the conflict zone could be effected.

“A potential conflagration over Nagorno Karabakh is quite likely to affect both of these pipelines,” he said. “They are of critical significance primarily for Azerbaijan, then Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Europe and the global economy.”

European officials have avoided mentioning trade and gas exports from the South Caucasus in their comments on the fighting and have instead focused on calling for a full ceasefire but bureaucrats across Europe’s capitals will be troubled by the conflict.

Central to their plan is to build a network of pipelines stretching from the Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey into Europe. Gas from this route, dubbed the Southern Gas Corridor, would start to compete with Russian supplies.

Sections of the pipeline, after all, run only 40km north of the frontlines in Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Turkmenistan shows off Chinese weapons

APRIL 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan showed off its arsenal of new Chinese-made air defence missiles for the first time, the Eurasianet website reported, confirming for the first time that it had bought weapons from China. The missile deal will irritate Russia which has traditionally had full sway over where its dominions, or past dominions, buy weapons.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Uzbekistan jails spy

APRIL 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – An Uzbek citizen received a 16-year jail sentence in Uzbekistan for spying for Tajikistan. The televised trial showed the man, Sharifjon Asrorov, confessing the alleged crimes. Tensions between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan continue to be high. Governments in Central Asia use espionage crimes to discredit rival neighbours.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan expropriates resorts

APRIL 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz government signed a decree to retake possession of four Uzbek-owned resorts near Lake Issyk-Kul. Buston, Rokhat, Dilorom, and Golden Sands are all owned by Uzbek entities, both public and private. These are Soviet- era vacation resorts that had been built in the 1960s. Tensions have been running high between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan since ethnic fighting in Osh in 2010.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Man dies after questioning by Tajik police

APRIL 3 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The death of a 27- year-old man after he had been questioned by Tajik police has sparked a row over police brutality in Tajikistan.

Bunyod Mirzoyev was found hanged after three days of police questioning over his apparent links to the Islamic extremist group IS. His family and friends said that police tortured him to try to extract a confession and had then killed him to try and hide the evidence.

The accusation triggered a forthright response from the police who issued a statement saying that they were on the receiving end of slander and that opponents of the authorities were trying to use the death of Mirzoyev to discredit the police.

Instead, the Tajik police said Mirzoyev had hanged himself from a tree when he returned home after being questioned.

“The suicide of B. Mirzoyev is currently under investigation by the prosecution,” the police said.

Still, human rights groups have long complained about police brutality in Tajikistan.

In 2012, Amnesty International released a report about the Tajik police’s use of torture to extract confessions.

“The torture methods used by the security forces are shocking: involving electric shocks, boiling water, suffocation, beatings, burning with cigarettes, rape and threats of rape – the only escape is to sign a confession or sometimes to pay a bribe ,” it said.

And it’s not difficult to find people who have had first hand experience of it.

A 32-year-old worker, said that the police beat people even if they have not done anything. “They can beat you up so hard that you will confess that you killed Lenin,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Worst fighting erupts between Armenia and Azerbaijan over N-K

APRIL 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Serious fighting broke out between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian backed forces around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, smashing a tense ceasefire that had been in place for 22 years.

Casualty numbers were difficult to gauge but at least several dozen people were killed in the fighting, mainly soldiers. Video footage showed both sides firing rockets and pounding well dug-in positions with heavy artillery, as well as deploying tanks and helicopters.

Alarmed that the fighting could escalate, world leaders urged both sides to sue for peace.

From Washington, John Kerry, US secretary of state, said: “The United States condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale ceasefire violations along the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact, which have resulted in a number of reported casualties, including civilians.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched Dmitri Medevedev to talk to both Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in Yerevan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

As the Bulletin went to press a two-day-old ceasefire held, although there were reports of sporadic fighting.

When the Soviet Union fractured in the late 1980s and early 1990s, localised ethnic tension started to explode into pockets of fighting. Nagorno- Karabakh, a region that belonged to Azerbaijan was one of these region. It was populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who wanted to break away.

After years of fighting that killed 30,000 people the UN negotiated a ceasefire in 1994 that left Armenia- backed rebels running the region.

Thomas de Waal, one of the foremost commentators on the South Caucasus, wrote in the New York Times that the conflict could spread.

“A new all-out Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the stuff of nightmares. Given the sophisticated weaponry both sides now possess, tens of thousands of young men would most likely lose their lives,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Tajik migrant workers appear to be most vulnerable to IS recruitment

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – DUSHANBE — In an apparent effort to shift responsibility for radicalisation away from Tajikistan, the Tajik Prosecutor General, Yusuf Rakhmon, said that around 85% of Tajik citizens who have joined IS in Syria and Iraq were migrant workers recruited in Russia.

Mr Rakhmon also told the state- owned Jumuhuriyat newspaper that official calculations showed 1,094 Tajik citizens fighting for IS.

Tajikistan has been criticised recently for being a soft touch for IS recruiters. Last year a highly regarded Tajik police chief, who had previously travelled to the United States on training missions, joined IS, handing the extremist group one of its biggest publicity coups.

Mr Rakhmon’s comments are important as, although independent research has suggested that disgruntled Tajik migrant workers who have been losing their jobs in the Russian recession are vulnerable to IS recruitment, there has previously been no official acknowledgement of the issue.

Also, the number of Tajik recruits to IS is higher than Mr Rakhmon has previously noted. In June, he said that there were around 400 Tajik fighters with IS. This was updated in November by the Tajik security service which said that 700 Tajiks had joined IS, although 300 had been killed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Afghans free Tajik captives

MARCH 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alleged drug smugglers from Afghanistan freed two Tajik road workers they had kidnapped last week. The Tajik border service said in a statement that the two men were caught during a cross border raid and were released after a ransom was paid. Tajikistan is concerned about worsening security around its border with Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Tajikistan tightens security at mosques

MARCH 28 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik authorities ordered mosques in Dushanbe to improve security by installing CCTV and metal detectors, a move that sceptics said was actually aimed at clamping down on pious Muslims who officials view with increasing unease.

Mahmadsaid Ubaydulloev, Dushanbe city mayor, said the extra surveillance was needed to ensure public safety in the city and that mosques would have to buy the kit with cash from their own budgets.

This is a continuation of a policy of tightening security around mosques in Tajikistan.

A month ago, Tajik authorities ordered mosques to police their prayers for extremists. The government is increasingly worried about radicals infiltrating mosques and either recruiting young men to join the extremist IS group in Syria or inciting revolution. Last year, the government banned the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and arrested its leaders and activists in what free speech advocates have described as clamp down on human rights.

And pious Muslims in Tajikistan have complained of increased harassment too, including being forced to shave long beards. They told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that the latest move to install extra security is merely aimed at making life even more difficult.

Umedjon, a 36-years old salesman, said that he does not feel free to pray. “Instead of focusing on praying, I have to think about how I am praying in order not to get in trouble with the authorities. If they install metal detectors and cameras, the mosque will become a constrained place for praying,” he said as he left one of central Dushanbe’s mosques.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)